


Will you wait for me?

by stranabambina



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, like really mild, mild e/R
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 11:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranabambina/pseuds/stranabambina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras wakes up as a ghost and finds Grantaire weeping his death, because he hasn't realised he's dead too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will you wait for me?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this beautiful artwork](http://perplexingly.tumblr.com/post/42302440960/in-which-grantaire-doesnt-realize-hes-dead) by perplexingly.  
> I'm afraid this ficlet doesn't do justice to her fanart, but I hope it's not so awful.  
> 

Waking up felt like being pulled out of water all of sudden.  
Sound came all at once, pounding against his ears in incoherent scratchy bursts: he could make out yells and clanking of boots on stone.  
He opened his eyes to soldiers swarming in and out of the houses, checking the area was cleared out.  
Enjolras noticed a shade moving among the crowd. It was a void which demanded attention, a translucent ghost: Eponine, frantically searching the battlefield. He could not hear her, but he knew she was crying Marius’s name. He figured he could as well go and help her, since there wasn’t much else to do. He pulled himself up to his feet, trying not to focus on the rather uncanny feeling of leaving his body behind.

All his purposes of helping the poor girl faltered as soon as he stepped down the window-frame and glanced into the room.  
It wasn’t the bodies scattered on the floor. He had always knew what they were risking, and he was thoroughly convinced his comrades had too. Not even seeing their pale figures hunching over their dead bodies, some weeping, some caressing them in morbid fascination, some even already fading out, made much of an impression on him. Enjolras would likely have been doing the same, if only Eponine hadn’t been out there running around thinking she was still alive and she could find Marius. But then, he noticed another one who hadn’t realized he had died.  
Grantaire was clutching to Enjolras’s trousers, bawling openly. From time to time he managed to compose himself enough to slur some invective about how unjust it was to be left behind. Enjolras couldn’t help getting irritated about how fazed out the drunk must have been not to notice that his cold body was curled up less than a feet away from there. Nevertheless, he bit his tongue. It was no use to snap at Grantaire, not anymore. Enjolras just put a hand over the other’s shoulder and called his name in a soft voice  
Grantaire looked up upon him. A new hope lit up his face.  
“Will you wait for me?”.  
“I’m so sorry”, said Enjolras, “I won’t have to”. As gently as he could, caressing more than pushing his cheek,  he directed Grantaire’s stare to his body. He would have expected despair from the other man, or at the very least resignation: certainly not the relieved, almost blissful expression which started to dawn on him.  
“Oh, thank God!”, cried the cynic, as he leapt up to hug Enjolras. With that passion, it should have been a rib-crushing clasp, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t be anymore. Enjolras wished Death hadn’t robbed them of their senses and their bodies, so that it wouldn’t have been as if he was hugging back thin air. Grantaire deserved that last silent act of recognition: for his courage and loyalty, and for doing more than any friend should ever do.  
But, since he couldn’t do otherwise, Enjolras spoke up: “You were so brave. And I’m so sorry”.  
“Don’t be”, Grantaire said, already beginning to fade.


End file.
